Talk:Aethicus Ister

Aethicus Ister (Aethicus of Istria) was the protagonist of the 7th/8th-century Cosmographia written by Pseudo-Jerome. It describes the travels of Aethicus around the world, and includes descriptions of foreign peoples in usually less than favourable terms. There are also numerous passages which deal directly with the legends of Alexander the Great (See Anderson, 1932). The text is edited most recently in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica by Otto Prinz (1993).


 * it is not aethicus of istria, but of danube. he was Scythian from danube. ister is the old name for danube.79.126.165.177 (talk) 08:56, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Criticisms
The Latin of the work is sometimes vulgar and facile, other times cryptic and opaque, owing in part to pseudo-Jerome's extremely difficult vocabulary of Graecisms and Latin/Greek compounds. (See Herren, 2001). Anagram games, and etymological 'jokes' (e.g. using the verb 'monstrare' followed by the noun 'monstrum', then the verb 'demonstrare') and other ludic elements are found throughout. The Latin spelling of the work seems to suggest also that the author was a Merovingian Frank (Prinz, 1993), but the idea of "Merovingian" spellings has recently been attacked as an unreliable measure of origin. Furthermore, only one manuscript of the work appears to have been written in Tours, while the majority can been traced to centres in what is now Germany (Prinz, 1993).

Pseudo-Jerome may have been associated with the Frankish translator of Pseudo-Methodius (? Petrus Monachus). There are several passages which seem to be borrowed one way or another, suggesting perhaps a parallel relationship rather than one of dependence. Nevertheless, Pseudo-Jerome's knowledge of Greek (a rare feat in Western Europe at the time) seems to indicate an association with the Canterbury school of Archbishop Theodore in the late 7th century. See recent articles by Michael Herren (in Nova de Veteribus) and Richard Pollard (Notes and Queries, March 2006) on a possible Anglo-Saxon connection for pseudo-Jerome. What seems clear is that pseudo-Jerome was not limited to a single locale throughout his working lifetime.